Dr Joana Madureira Lima

Dr Joana Madureira Lima is the Coordinator for the Social Determinants and Healthy Settings (SDH) unit at the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific. In this role, she leads the unit’s work supporting Member States to address the social, economic and commercial determinants of health, strengthen healthy settings and environments, and reduce health inequities across the Region.

Dr Madureira trained as a medical doctor before pursuing a Master’s degree in Global Health. She began her career as a public health advocate at the Brussels-based European Public Health Alliance, where she developed a strong interest in the commercial determinants of health and how they influence the consumption of unhealthy commodities and population health outcomes. This interest led her to pursue a PhD focused on the commercial determinants of health.

Prior to her current appointment, Dr Madureira served as Acting WHO Representative to Kyrgyzstan and as Technical Officer for Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health at the WHO Country Office in Italy. In this role, she contributed to several initiatives on health equity, including work on the Health Equity Status Report.